


Moonstruck

by selahexanimo



Category: Celtic Mythology, Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, Tam Lin (Traditional Ballad)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Retelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-17 19:49:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1400332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selahexanimo/pseuds/selahexanimo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who shall rescue the hero when the hero falls? A wicked fairy steals the Hero of Time away to the underworld, and Princess Zelda, unable to abandon Hyrule, asks Malon to save him in her stead. <em>Ocarina of Time</em>, novelized, re-imagined, and heavily inspired by the <em>Ballad of Tam Lin</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - Lady in the Tower

**Author's Note:**

> I originally published _Moonstruck_ in July 2006 on Fanfiction.net. The novel is, as of April 2014, still a work in progress, and can be read [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3041164/1/Moonstruck). This version is a revision. The story remains generally unaltered, but my writing style has changed (and maybe even improved) in the eight years I've been working on it. Hopefully, this version reflects that possible improvement while remaining true to the spirit of the original! Major revisions include additional detail from the canon, cleaned up world-building, and lots of sentence-level pruning. The FFN and AO3 chapter counts stop matching up around chapter four.
> 
> oOo
> 
> For Lara, who loves _Moonstruck_ even when I can't, and who reminds me, every time we talk, that this fic will always be worth finishing. This is for you, Lara, always for you,  <3

_Take me inside the hour you became miserable, lost your soul…_   
— _The White Devil_ by Justin Evans

 **oOo**

PROLOGUE  
THE LADY IN THE TOWER

Stooped in the sullen darkness, where the very stone was rendered black, the shrine of Beauty crumbled, entombed in a weary young woman.

She had been comely, once. Regality lurked in the upward tilt of her chin, in the pale curls coiffed at the back of her neck, in the set of her mouth. She sat with her shoulders drawn back, her spine straight. Though her gown was faded and the hem of her skirt grimy, nobility lingered in its sumptuous cut, in the trace of purple in her bodice. Hers was the ageless grace after which the poets had hungered, once.

Yet little of the grace remained. There was something raw and ruined about her, something ravaged, something hopeless. She stank as the tower and the streets of the market sprawled below stank, of putrid sickness and sewage. Her wheezing breath was the only sound in the room. A draft crawled across her neck; she shivered. 

The girl ducked over her bloody fingers, the fragment of canvas, and the needle she held. The needle was dull and crimson-tipped, a testament to her lack of skill. She had destroyed her hands, in a mad attempt to be useful here in the dark tower whose shadow straddled the walls of Market Town. For many days she had gouged them, purposely driving the needle beneath her nails when spasms of wrath came upon her. The patience for which her child-self had been famous was now expunged, driven to madness, ravaged, hampered, destroyed. She could no longer wait for her skill to develop, could no longer lean against the stained glass panes, tracing the mullions with her blighted fingers and dreaming of lighter days. Could she have wept for innocence and innocent habit lost, the tears would have fallen. But they too had been expunged.

Driven out, alongside her vision.

She sometimes dwelt upon the lighter days, as she sat sewing. In the musty quiet, days when the breath of spring was upon the land came again to her, and she felt again the horse that she had often rode, in the company of noble men and maidens. How beautiful the world had been, breathless with colour, drunk upon daylight's dewy kisses. She remembered the dawn haze, and how it had washed the lake, boiling from the surface of the water to swallow the bars and beads of sunlight, the trills of finch and martin, the voices of nobles, thrumming the lakeshore. She and her entourage had often visited the lake, watching the mist clear and heaven unveil herself amid the remnants of filmy dew. And along the shore, where the gray Field crumbled into patches of brush and sand, Pleasure raised her lilac tent, in the form of picnics and excursions, cotillions danced _al fresco_ , hours upon the lake.

How sweet life had been, careless and festive, without the weight of care! Mortals were not cursed by prophetic dreams, or driven from their castles, hunted by madmen, stabbed in their beds. Life was levity, the hours woven with laughter. And in one moment, as seemingly felicitous as the next, it had all been destroyed. Pleasure weighted with care, levity driven to exile, laughter stabbed in its bed. 

How quickly did the goddesses take what they had amply bestowed.

The girl twisted the needle in her hands and gave a sharp jerk. The needle parted company with the thread and the girl, laying it carefully it in her lap, proceeded to knot the thread. The thread was full of knots, both of her own devising and of the device of misfortune, and the thread was becoming difficult to work with. 

Her fingers were graceless, and the process of knotting arduous. She at last straightened, and ran her fingers down the short length of thread. The loops were too wide, and had come untied. She gritted her teeth, raised the thread to her sightless eyes, and pulled violently at the ends. 

There was the muffled rip. The girl gasped, her hand flying to the cloth. The fabric was torn, the seams pulled asunder. A shriek escaped her before she could stop it; standing, the girl threw the fabric aside, and felt it brush her skirt as it fell to the ground.

The solitary ping of a needle upon the flagstones caught her attention. With a cry and wild gesture, she felt her lap. The needle was gone. She fell to her knees, landing with a shock that seemed able to shatter her fragile build. She ran her hands over the floor, patting the stone, uttering little cries. It was gone, no doubt having sprung away upon colliding with the ground, and vanishing into some black recess. Or perhaps it lay right before her nose. No matter if it did.

She rose, sobbing and tearless, and drove her fists into the window behind her. Her lady-in-waiting had not yet opened the shutters, and her fists thumped against the fragmented wood, blossoming into a shower of stings as her hands were pricked. Her mind registered the brief pain. Wildly, she flung her fists against the shutters. The rotten wood sagged beneath her blows. Lunatic buoyancy suddenly swelled in her chest. She beat at the shutters, willing them to burst open, to give way to the window, so that she might shatter the glass with her bare fists and destroy it. Just as devils, as Time, as goddesses, and heroes and love and her Ganondorf had destroyed her—

"Zelda? Zelda! No, _no_!" 

Her violence had deafened her to the entrance of her lady. One moment she beat the shutters, the next she fell against the solid breast of her lady Impa, wrists caught in a scarred, iron clasp. "What are you doing?" Impa shouted. "What are you doing?"

She began to shake the girl, who drooped and sobbed and pulled in a vain attempt to release herself. Finding her efforts useless, she began to blubber, her knees failing her. Somewhere, in the turmoil of her thoughts, she saw the futility of pleading, of demanding, of explaining the wild joy she took from destroying something. Surely, _that_ was what she needed in this tower. No fabric, or useless attempts to sew clothes for refugees, but something to hurt and destroy and blight as she had been blighted. Her hands, she slowly realised, had been her first victims. What next, when shutters and hands were exhausted?

"Zelda..." Impa stopped shaking her and lowered her to the flagstones. "Zelda, what is wrong?"

"I-I can't stand it up here!" Zelda sobbed. "Why do you abandon me? Why do you leave me here? I-I'll shatter the window when you're gone. I'll throw myself out!"

In her mind's eyes, she raised a blade and began to stab her beloved Impa.

Impa sighed. "Zelda," she whispered, "I try and I try. Why don't you tell me you don't like it up here? I would have brought you down. You know I would rather you were not up here. But you wished— You wished to stay here. You remember—?" 

"Yes." Zelda raised a hand to her face, to the bandage about what once were her eyes. "I do. Dear goddesses, I do."

A deep, terrible pain suddenly exploded in her head, and she fell against Impa with a dry sob. "But don't leave me here, please!" The pain waxed, as though Death purposed to take her then and there, and then subsided, revealing itself to be naught but a memory. Her lungs gasped for air. 

"You will come down," said Impa, pressing her head gently. "I think it will be good for the refugees to see you. They have wished to see you since the Fall."

"His fall," whispered Zelda.

"Yes," said Impa, and her voice was like rock, steeped in strangled fury. "They clamor for the destruction of this tower." Zelda felt her straighten and stand, and the chill air was again upon the princess's skin. "It is a blight upon the landscape, and they remembered how he used to stand at that window, with his monsters..."

"I remember too," murmured Zelda. "He brought me here, in the pink crystal, before he—my eyes—"

"Don't speak of it," Impa snapped. The memory of pain filled Zelda's skull once more. 

"It wasn't his fault," she whispered.

"His fault?" Impa's voice was again strangled. "Not his fault? Who, Zelda, who was it who—"

She paused suddenly, and her boots scraped the flagstone, as she spun aside, hissing.

Zelda rose, rubbing at the gooseflesh that had broke out upon her arms. "I'm too exhausted to be angry now, Impa," she said.

"Well what was that before? When I found you pounding the shutters?" 

"That exhausted me. I'd lost my needle, and the fact I've lost everything else came upon me, and I was angry..." Her voice slipped bitterly into silence. 

"Angry," muttered Impa, "and yet you speak of him."

"Yes, I do." 

"Angry that all you ever owned was lost, and yet you speak of _him_ —" spitting the word. 

"Yes, Impa. I speak of him."

Zelda stretched out a hand and made her way to the window seat. "I was not angry with him," she said, "or else I am angry with the entire world. But I cannot hate him, nor the world. Only myself, my damned love, only Time—" She stopped abruptly, hissing, and a remnant of the anger was upon her, as she drove a fist into the wall at her side. "He did not ravish me as Time has. As Time has destroyed me and Hyrule and our only hope—" 

"Hope has not been destroyed." Impa sank onto the seat beside her. "Remember, the hero came again, and saved us all."

"And destroyed whatever hope kindled for Ganondorf—" 

"Zelda!" She felt Impa turn on her. "For Din's sake, what do you want?" 

"Him, again." Zelda paused, rubbing a hand against her chest. "Ganondorf. He was my husband, you know."

"And he blinded you!" Impa hissed. "Cut out your eyes!" 

"But it wasn't him," Zelda murmured. "It wasn't him and I know, for I'd seen him, as himself, and he was a good, good man..." 

"Misguided, surely!"

"Misguided, yes." Zelda paused again, turned aside. "Misguided and possessed. Just as I am."


	2. I - Eavesdropping and Accusations

**oOo**

PART I // CHAPTER I  
EAVESDROPPING AND ACCUSATIONS

Princess Zelda hearkened to the voices of men drifting down the twilit garden walkway.

She hid behind a trellis, trembling. Her hands, splayed on the latticework, made the trellis rattle softly. She drew back, wiped the sweat from her palms, and wished, desperately that she had not dropped her handkerchief. It lay, like a splash of cream, on the edge of the light that spilled from the ballroom doorway through which first she—and then the men—had emerged. She had dropped it in her haste to conceal herself—for she had no wish to be found, to be sociable, when all she desired was fresh, cool air and silence. The handkerchief was now too far away for her to retrieve without being noticed, a token of light against the darkness. If the men came upon the wretched thing, it would give her away.

The girl leaned closer, pressing her eye to a spot between the roses. Shadows wavered on the lighted walkway before her, one broad-shouldered, the other spindle-legged. Sounds of festivity murmured from behind them. For a moment, the girl imagined the Great Hall: the light would be violent, drenching a congregation of earls, ladies, barons, and knights in brilliance, while in dark corners breaths of music spoke of minstrels tuning their instruments. A portly chanteuse would sing arias in her rich mezzo-soprano. Such brightness, such nobility, such shimmering cloth and smiles and genteel laughter—it was enough to blind. The girl shuddered again. They drank down festivity as if it were their natural right, those myriad guests. Danced and romped, those witnesses to her ruin.

The night air was cool upon her neck. The girl brushed a strand of hair from her face and felt a rose thorn scrape her skin; she flinched. A thin streak of film, like a surplus vein, materialized. She hid her hand behind her back.

A slow, heavy sigh from one of the shadows dragged her attention back to the ballroom doorway. The shadow with the spindly legs shifted, leaned forward with a confidential air. "So then, Laird Ganondorf: how d'ye fancy marryin' my niece the princess in a fortnight or sae?" His accent was as thick as any of the Ordonian rustics over whom he was lord, bristling with satisfaction. “Will ye have any use faer her, beyond pleasin' my brothair the king? D'ye think the girl can ever love you?”

"She,” said Lord Ganondorf, in deep, somber tones that could not whisper, but rumbled like far-flung thunder, “will be my wife. That is all the use I require; love hardly enters into the equation.”

The girl gave a strangled sigh and clasped a hand to her mouth. Her quivering had grown, and her breath was raw and hot between her shaking fingers. She shuffled back from the trellis. There was a sharp crackle, as her slippered feet crunched a stray twig.

"Hey there, and what's that?" The first speaker glanced around the bend in the palace wall. Zelda saw, through the web of lattice, the outline of her uncle, the Duke of Ordona, dressed in frills and glittering medals like a foppish general on parade. She held her breath, tightened the hand behind her back as if a fist could erase her accidental noise.

"An animal, I suppose," said Lord Ganondorf. "I chanced upon a herd of deer in the southern portion of these gardens only this day."

"Ah, yes..." The Duke drew slowly aside. "I suppose..."

His voice was suddenly swamped by a burst of song from the Great Hall.

"Och, the cursed songbird!" the Duke cried, stepping from around the bend and into the gloom. "I canna stand her voice, 'tis like a man's. Come, let us take a turn about the gardens faer a wee moment. What d'ye say to that, Laird Ganondorf?" 

"I trust I shall be missed," murmured Ganondorf. He moved away from the doorway. The girl shrank into the dark. She felt rose leaves skim her back and heard their stirring as she retreated into a wall smothered in their vines. She froze.

"I can assure ye, Laird Ganondorf, my brothair won' miss ye a bit," the Duke snorted. "He won' miss ye, for the songbird sings now, and he loves her voice. Poor man. Ye know he was disappointed that his daughter ne'er had a sweet voice such as the chanteuse, or his wife faer that matter. Ye know she still lives, my brothair’s wife? She was a bonnie lass afore the sickness took her mind some year agone—in a single night! they say, her mind just _gone_ , like the goddesses plucked it out with tweezers. Poor girl foams at the mouth and mus' be locked in her boudoir, now, les' she injure herself in 'er lunacy..." The Duke shrugged. "Maybe 'tis not mah place tae tell ye of the Mad Queen, but I don' suppose my brothair or his girl shall. They’re a deal ashamed of the queen, canna stand to see the foam and the way the woman rolls her eyes. The princess won' tell ye anything but her mama is dead, and when the king dies and ye are the young queen's consort, it willna be pleasant when ye stumble one day upon her mama, a-droolin' and writhin' in her bed—"

"I would thank you to be silent," said Lord Ganondorf, suddenly. 

The girl covered her mouth and felt her eyes prick. She rubbed at them, her fingers trembling with revulsion. _The dark world take you for its own, Uncle,_ she thought, savagely. How could he say such terrible things? Claim that she was utterly without filial feeling, that she and her father were _ashamed_ of her sick mother? _The dark world take you the dark world take you_ —the mantra darted through her mind. But even it could not clear the sudden vision that burst upon her, a vision of her mother sunk upon a couch, spittle upon her lips, eyes unfocused, humming a strange, tuneless song, sometimes whispering, “Oh, milady, take me _with you_ , let me ride beside you…”

Ganondorf stepped from the light, and the Duke rounded upon him. "Mah apologies, Laird Ganondorf," he cried, with an exaggerated bow. "I meant nae harm, on'y tae give ye information."

"And why, my good man, would you think such... information, worthy of disclosure?"

"Why, mah good, good laird—" The Duke patted his shoulder, and Ganondorf turned aside, so that the palm slid from its perch. "Doan be in dudgeon with me, 'twas mere family gossip. Ye are tae be family very soon. What harm can a wee acquaintance with the family gossip do?"

Ganondorf was silent. Zelda crept forward, her daring restored, and peered through another space in the trellis roses. The lord was motionless, hands clasped behind his back, eyes fixed on the walkway before him.

"It seems, my good man, that I am marrying into a… strange family."

The Duke laughed. " _Strange_ is not the word for it," he said. “Diminished, mayhap? Mah brothair has ne'er been very strong since the queen lost her mind. And the girl is a far better consort than a rulin' monarch. I should hope she attends tae her advisors, bein' as they are a deal maer experienced than 'erself."

"I see."

"But you, mah laird!" The Duke's buckled shoes scraped and clacked upon the walkway, as he bowed, again, ostentatiously. "You have nae tae fear, faer you are a man practised in the art of ruling! You are a most gracious lord; before you deigned tae grace the Hylian Plain with your presence, we palace men could only stand upon your reputation of inspiring love in the black hearts of yon Gerudo women." He paused, glancing up to see what impression his words had made upon the lord. Ganondorf made no indication that an impression had been made. The princess felt a dull, grudging kind of triumph— _he sees through you, Uncle, the dark world take you the dark—_

"But now we no longer wait in darkness," the Duke continued. He straightened, grinned. "For our light has come. We needn't fear faer our beautiful land now that you are here to marry our princess. When her father dies and she is made queen, we nobles shall know that a strong and honest man also sits upon the throne. Faer, you see, the princess is a wee thing, and her knowledge not very keen. But you shall be a strong leader, once you have learned the Hylian traditions.” He coughed. “You’ll need a man acquainted with them to learn them tae you."

The girl watched as a smile came to the face of Lord Ganondorf. It was a peculiar smile, failing to kindle his golden eyes, bending his face into a grotesque mask. A sneer, perhaps, as if he found her uncle’s ploy so obvious as to be repulsive. "I have only one question of you, my dear Duke," he said, after a moment, his voice light with incongruous good humor.

"Anything, mah laird!" 

"What is your intent?"

The Duke paused. A trace of understanding came to his face.

"A man mun have friends in high places, mah laird," he replied. 

“Indeed,” Ganondorf said. “Indeed.”

He took a long step forward and began to stroll down the path, the Duke close at his side. "My friend..." Ganondorf began. "I have not been in the Hylian court for too long… But I have been here long enough to hear things of… _value_."

"Aye?"

"Is it true you are disliked by the king and his daughter? And the girl's nursemaid?"

The Duke chortled. "My brothair has no use for a backwoods Duke. Boyhood rivalry made uglier by the throne, eh? I’ve no wish tae claim Hyrule—Ordona is enough!—but my brothair don’t believe that, canna believe anybody would wish anything different from hisself. But you can trust what I tell you,” he added, quickly. “I see things with an impartial eye.”

“Precisely why I asked,” Ganondorf said. “Tell me—what is the girl's nursemaid like?"

"Ah, you ha'e seen the iron-haired woman in the Great Hall, during supper, by the princess? That is her, in Sheikah dress, with merc'less frown. The woman's a witch."

The girl curdled with indignation.

"And what of the princess?"

The Duke smiled. "A sweet maid. You shall like her; she's a tractable girl, and bonnie, if ye are inclined to honey-haired girls with small ankles. She has a tendency to dream what the priest Raura—ye saw him, yes? Standing by the king’s chair, like a man of the goddesses shielding his laird from the sins of the festive rabble?—what Raura calls _prophetically_. He makes a fuss o' it, but that's faer the sake of the common people. But yes. Ye shall like the girl."

"I see."

"And now, mah laird, since we’re tradin tales—if ye doan mind me inquirin'—is it true that ye are a wizard?" 

“A wizard,” said Ganondorf. “A fascinating way to put things. I am a man of knowledge. A sage, you might say.”

“But of course!” said the Duke, with a laugh edged in grim humor. “Forgive me my questions. It’s only I’ve heard things that ye might like laid tae rest—a task ye can count on me tae do, rest assur—” 

“What things?” said Ganondorf, halting.

The Duke fumbled for an answer and seemed reluctant to pause his own steps. “Och, such paltry things. About the women ye left back in Gerudo Valley to watch yaer throne—witches, men say, but men’ve got vile tongues in their head, eh?—and about… about a quest. Your quest faer a treasure that shall bestow upon ye more power than the goddesses themselves have already gi'en ye.”

 Ganondorf’s tone was neutral. “I should like to meet these _men_ , with their wagging tongues.”

“Och! Everyone says things; they've nothing better to fill their heads with than with superstition. You’ve heard of the Gorons, starvin up in their mountain? Or that folk say to avoid the forest, because of caravans getting lost and the woods always like the night, the trees rotting where they stand like a curse is on them? Pah. Idle gossiping rabble, looking for explanations.”

“Am I,” said Ganondorf, “their explanation?”

Zelda heard what Ganondorf did not say— _am I, as a Gerudo and their object of distrust, also the object of their blame?_  

“Folk are stupid,” said the Duke. “They need coaxing tae find the right path faer their wagging tongues and idle thought—Hey!” The Duke paused. "Whatever is this?"

The Duke bent to remove something trapped beneath his feet, and when he straightened, he held Zelda's handkerchief. She scrambled away from the trellis, crouched down against the wall, stifling a little moan of terror. She was moments away from discovery.

"It looks like some fair maiden's lost her hanky!" the Duke laughed. 

The girl could no longer see what transpired beyond the lattice. She curled both hands into fists, lips clamped, heartbeat in her throat. Ganondorf said, "Give me the handkerchief, good man." He paused. "We should, perhaps, hasten back to the Great Hall. I dare say we have strolled long enough to be missed by someone." 

“No one important,” the Duke said, with a laugh. “But I suppose I sha' go in. 'Tis cold!" The princess listened to the retreat of his brisk footsteps.

Silence descended.

Zelda held still. She could not be sure if Lord Ganondorf had gone—moving cat-quiet, cat-quick, on thief’s feet, for was he not the King of Thieves? She had heard such whispered of him. She feared to check if she was truly alone. The sudden turn of the air also unnerved her, as much as it had caught her uncle off guard—a chill she could not account for at the height of midsummer. 

Several minutes passed. The girl told herself she must be going, before she was truly missed. She rose, brushing the dust from her skirt and hands, listening—still, only silence. Satisfied that she was alone, she finally stepped around the trellis. 

An iron hand clenched her wrist. Zelda screamed. 

Her feet slipped from beneath her, and she toppled into the trellis, where it rattled as though shaken by Din in Her anger. Rose thorns burrowed into Zelda’s back. She gasped, and a hand, larger than her own, grasped her shoulder and dragged her away.

"My apologies," said the voice of Lord Ganondorf. "I did not mean to frighten you, only to inquire..."

His grip grew tighter. She hissed in pain. 

"What you are doing out here, when the party within is being held in your honor."

 Tears blurred her vision, and she wrenched her hand from his, feeling joints pop and expand.

"You needn't be violent, princess."

Ganondorf loomed tall and dark above her and held out a cream-coloured piece of material. "Is this yours?" he asked. 

She took the handkerchief from him.

"What were you doing here?"

"Is it wrong that I should be found ambling in my own garden?" Her voice was a breathless rasp.

"I fail to see a connection between your avowal of ambling, and my vision of you huddled against this wall."

A bitter taste rose in her mouth. 

"Do not keep me here—" she gasped.

He slid a hand beneath her chin and brought her face close to his own. "I did not intend to," he said, gently.

He stepped aside, She slithered past him onto the walkway. Her courage returned.

"You cannot take it," she declared.

"Pardon?"

"That power for which you search. Why you have come to the Hylian Field." 

"I have only come in search of peace, princess. Peace, and the treaties that will ensure it."

"You _lie_."

"I do?" He tilted his head.

"Please..." Her courage was failing, and she groped for some sliver of thought—some horror—that might recapture it, that might combat the emotion building within her. "Please... Do not deny what you come in search for. This is only a pretext—your peace—this marriage—that is all clear! But you will not obtain the Triforce because you cannot; I will not let you!" 

"Are you sick, princess?"

"I will not let you!" Her voice rose to a fevered scream. Mortified, she turned and scurried down the walkway. The doors of the palace had been closed while she was not looking; she slammed a hand against the panels. One door dragged inward. Light poured into that patch of garden, illuminating the princess, her pale face, her quaking form.

"Princess," said the concierge, stunned.

She crept past him and into the brilliance of the room. A woman sat by the door; Zelda caught her eye as she entered and saw her scandalized expression. A chill ran through her. Whatever hope she might have had of an unmarked entrance had vanished: the eyes of guests fixed upon her.

Horror overwhelmed her. Her entire being revolted.

The princess spun about and saw the doors swinging shut. She flung herself at them, breathless with a wish to be outside. To be free of this cruel, artificial realm, though the Gerudo lord ruined the solace of the outdoors— 

She was suddenly confused. Were all her dreams and fears, in truth, groundless? She had felt a measure of peace in Lord Ganondorf's presence, more than she felt here. Perhaps there was chance that Lord Ganondorf searched not for the Triforce, as her dreams had said, but for the much needed peace between the Gerudo and Hylians, as he claimed. Perhaps there was a chance her marriage was not further imprisonment, but a strange manner of release.

For when had her dreams ever given her anything but pain?

She cast herself into the garden and peered into the darkness for some sign of the Gerudo lord. She saw nothing, nothing but the hedges and brick walkway, fading into the darkness.

The air was no longer cold. It was warm, as summer nights were meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited as of October 16, 2013. (Original version available on fanfiction.net) Revisions include general sentence level clean up, a few additions (I elaborated on the story of Zelda’s mother and added to Ganondorf and the Duke’s conversation so that more of the early events of Ocarina of Time are mentioned), and a few subtractions (I removed the epigraph and the cursed girdle that Ganondorf gave Zelda in the very beginning, because the girdle wasn't coming back. There are materials that react badly to magic in _Moonstruck_ —such as Malon's iron pendant—a point the girdle was meant to touch on, but the magic in question is fairy magic, which is different from Zelda's. So out the window the girdle goes).


End file.
